I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Death Metal – the sonic attack is fine but the subject matter traded in by some bands leaves me absolutely cold and the surfeit of melody in a lot of the bands that I’ve heard hasn’t done a lot to win me over. That said, it’s nice to see organizations such as the Australia Council for the Arts acknowledging that worthwhile work is being done in non-traditional styles and by bands who are never going to be rivalling Nickelback in record sales – in that sense, a band like this are doing what they do for love and for Art with the proverbial capital ‘A’.

Take the ‘harsh vocals‘ side of the death metal genre – in many ways, that particular aspect of the genre is as alien and impenetrable to lay people as much of contemporary art is to a casual observer. The lyrical content, too, is bound to boggle fans of Jessie J or The Wanted – if they don’t just laugh it off nervously, they might well find the extremity and verbosity more akin to some form of pointedly abstract poetry which they can’t understand.

Fair play to Ouroboros – Let’s hope that their efforts to secure this funding result in them delivering a record which delivers on their ambitions and perhaps even gives the Death Metal sceptics like me a route into a genre which I’ve previously not found that accessible.